With the opening of the new century, the "poetic drama" was revived with a certain measure of success by the production of Mr. Stephen Phillips's plays. Mr. Phillips had graduated as an actor, but _Punch_ found him lacking in the theatrical sense, while acknowledging the pomp and pageantry of his verse. _Herod_, with Sir Herbert Tree in the title _rôle_, is condemned for its repulsive realism, and the lack of any character that engaged sympathy. The notice of _Paolo and Francesca_ in 1902 is long, critical and by no means unfriendly, but the resultant impression is of "a negative achievement" in which the purple patches failed to redeem the lack of consistent characterization or of stage-craft. Mr. Henry Ainley is mentioned, but without any recognition of the qualities which have since earned for him distinction and popularity. _Nero_, by the same author, produced in 1906, is described as "out-heroding _Herod_." There were many fine lines but little dramatic action. _Punch_ praises Miss Constance Collier as Poppaea, but cannot take the part seriously. "She looked the Roman lady, played the unfaithful wife, and died effectively as an invalid after a long and inexplicable illness. Perhaps she was poisoned. Nero knows; nobody else does except, perhaps, Mr. Stephen Phillips." Tree's make-up as Nero was most artistic, but he had not one really fine scene given him; Mrs. Tree was an admirable Agrippina; but _Punch_ was not thrilled by the final conflagration, which he describes as a "weird, maniacal but dramatically unsatisfactory finish." [Sidenote: _Barrie and Shaw_]